


to belong

by Ladybug_21



Category: Broadchurch
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, F/F, First Time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-05
Updated: 2020-09-05
Packaged: 2021-03-07 03:15:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26290090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladybug_21/pseuds/Ladybug_21
Summary: After that first kiss on the cliffs.
Relationships: Jocelyn Knight/Maggie Radcliffe
Comments: 14
Kudos: 82





	to belong

**Author's Note:**

> I know that other people have written this moment already, and I'll be the first to acknowledge that I really do not know how to write smut, and yet I guess this still now exists? This is basically a prequel to [_morning, afternoon, sunset_](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24459133) that heavily references my headcanons about Jocelyn's hangups with intimacy arising from the second part of [_Snapshots_](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23598376). As always, I own no rights to _Broadchurch_.
> 
> UPDATE: Very random, but I've been on an Ólafur Arnalds kick recently, and while not actually from either of the _Broadchurch_ soundtracks, [this little piece](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pg7TY7vLAgg) really just seemed to fit the mood of this fic, so I'm appropriating it.

Maggie didn't know what to expect, after that kiss on the cliffs. Even if Jocelyn had been the one to reach out, even if Jocelyn had been the one brave enough to express her feelings first, Maggie could sense the barrister's hesitance. They packed up the remnants of their picnic and walked in breathless silence back to Jocelyn's house, golden sun sinking below the horizon line, an uncertain excitement fizzling through the air between where their hands brushed up against each other. Once inside the house, Maggie half-expected Jocelyn to thank her again and subtly indicate that she should leave, but instead Jocelyn tentatively reached out once more and caressed Maggie's hair, pulled her closer to let Maggie's lips brush her own, their kisses increasingly interspersed with tiny gasps of longing.

"Maggie," whispered Jocelyn, her body tensing slightly, and Maggie realised that her hands had wandered down to Jocelyn's hips, her fingers inching beneath the knit of Jocelyn's turtleneck to stroke the soft flesh of Jocelyn's sides.

"I'm sorry, petal," Maggie muttered, withdrawing her hands hastily. "I didn't mean to presume. We don't have to go any farther than you feel comfortable. I want you to feel safe, above everything else."

Jocelyn grasped Maggie's hands gently and turned them over in her own, as if contemplating everything that Maggie had said, weighing her own emotions. And there was something in the shy way that Jocelyn glanced at Maggie then that spoke to years of solitude and self-doubt, to Jocelyn's having convinced herself that she wasn't lost at all, and to her sudden realisation of how much it meant nevertheless to be found.

"Please, Maggie," she said quietly, her eyes dropping back down to their hands. "I want you to. I want to know how it feels to be touched by someone who truly wants me."

Maggie's heart fluttered, and she ducked her head so that her mouth could meet Jocelyn's again, their kisses short and sweet and reassuring at first, then longer and deeper and drawing small moans of pleasure from Jocelyn's throat as Maggie's fingers wound into her hair. By the time they reached the bedroom, their lips were raw from the pressure of each other's mouths and the tug of each other's teeth, their hands already warmed against the bare skin of each other's backs and stomachs beneath their clothes. Maggie helped Jocelyn pull off her turtleneck, then unhooked Jocelyn's bra as Jocelyn tugged at Maggie's jumper and fumbled with the buttons on her shirt, her mouth still pressed to Maggie's, breaths sharp and ragged with expectation. And Maggie gasped at the sheer beauty of Jocelyn's body, at the swell of her breasts and the dip of her shoulders, at the tiny whimpers that Jocelyn emitted as Maggie used her thumbs and then her lips and tongue to tease Jocelyn's nipples into sensitive, hard knots. She lowered her mouth to the softness of Jocelyn's stomach and felt Jocelyn undulate under the pressure of her kisses, Jocelyn's nails scrabbling deliciously against Maggie's scalp and back as Maggie's hands kneaded the skin at the hollows of Jocelyn's hips. And finally, Maggie dared to explore deeper, and she relished Jocelyn's startled cry as she gently touched the warm softness between Jocelyn's legs, slick with the rich, tantalising salty-sweetness of Jocelyn's own desire.

 _And she trusts me with all this perfection_ , Maggie marvelled, a lustful tenderness surging within her as her strokes fell into a steady rhythm and Jocelyn's strangled wails synced with her jolts of mounting pleasure. _After holding so much of herself from the rest of the world, after decades of winding herself tightly together behind a flawless façade, she's willing to let me unravel her completely, she's willing to let me see her like this, unpolished and vulnerable and completely without pretence..._

" _Maggie_ ," begged Jocelyn, eyes closed, mouth gaping open.

"Don't fight it, Jocelyn," Maggie ordered breathlessly, feeling Jocelyn resisting her climax. "Don't try to control it. Just let yourself feel it. Engage it. Don't push it away."

And Jocelyn obeyed Maggie, breath hitching, body contracting into the point where Maggie's fingers pulsed against her, head thrown back with a cry, then everything delectably trembling apart. Maggie lazily kissed her way back up Jocelyn's shuddering torso and nestled herself into the curves of her panting lover, one arm wrapped casually around Jocelyn's hips, her cheek rising and falling on Jocelyn's shoulder with each of the barrister's heavy breaths. After a moment, Jocelyn turned her head to press her lips slowly into Maggie's hair.

"You know," murmured Maggie, her breath warm against Jocelyn's neck, "I've been dreaming of doing exactly that to you since about 1998, and yet all of my fantasies somehow never were _nearly_ as good as the real thing. I could get very used to this."

A thrum of laughter escaped Jocelyn's throat, and she nuzzled her nose against Maggie's head. A second later, Maggie realised that the tiny tremors now coursing through Jocelyn's body were because she was crying.

"What's wrong, petal?" she asked, raising her head and placing her hand on Jocelyn's tear-streaked cheek, her fingers still a bit sticky.

"I just... never could have imagined..." Jocelyn brought her own hand to Maggie's cheek, her thumb lightly brushing the contour of Maggie's cheekbone, as if to reassure herself that Maggie was really there. "All these years, I've never dared to believe that you or anyone else would really want me, in this way. I always thought that, if I somehow found the courage to ask, you would say no; or that we'd reach a certain point and you'd change your mind because I... I lacked experience or skill that I should have had, by this age. Or, worst of all, that we would go all the way through with it, and that it wouldn't mean anything to you, and you'd leave and I'd still be just as alone. And now, to not only believe that it was _possible_ that you always wanted me like this, to _know_ that you did, and to know that you would stay after—I just suddenly feel like I belong, in a way that I never thought I could. I never imagined being this happy."

Maggie smiled and kissed Jocelyn again, softly, tenderly, her fingers smoothing away the tears on Jocelyn's cheeks.

"Jocelyn, I so wish that you could see yourself the way that I see you," she said. "Because, if you could, you wouldn't doubt for a second how desirable you are. Not only to me, I should add, you're objectively so incredibly _beautiful_. But beyond that, I wish I could make you understand just how much I love you. Always have, always will. I certainly consider sex to be a very enjoyable part of my relationships, but even if you had never wanted me to touch you like this, I still would love you just as much. I still would stay, as long as you wanted me there for you."

Jocelyn smiled through her tears, her eyes filled with gratitude and trust. She kissed Maggie again, and then snuggled into the journalist, this time tucking her own head beneath Maggie's chin, where she was most enveloped by the warm safety of Maggie's body.

"Do you want me to try...?" she murmured, her fingers tracing the rise and fall of Maggie's hip.

"No need," Maggie answered, holding Jocelyn close to her. She had known going into all of this that Jocelyn—ever the perfectionist—was likely to be insecure about her relative inexperience, and there was no sense in exacerbating any of that right now, not when they both were feeling so content and secure and satisfied (Maggie really always had gotten off by pleasuring her lovers, perhaps even more so than by letting them pleasure her). But when Jocelyn raised her face a bit, pouting, Maggie relented with a smile. "But explore all of you want, petal, I certainly won't stop you unless you start doing something I don't like."

And so Maggie leaned back and watched through sleepy, hooded eyes as Jocelyn sat up and examined Maggie's body, as studiously and seriously as if she were reading a new brief for the first time, but with a soft yearning to her gaze. And Maggie tried to imagine what this must be like for Jocelyn, who (to Maggie's knowledge) had never had a lover before, had never had permission or the opportunity to really drink in the sight of another woman's body with the understanding that it was hers to caress and kiss and stroke as she wished. She gasped and squirmed with pleasure as Jocelyn's fingers and lips whispered lightly across her skin, testing where Maggie wanted to be touched before sinking in with an unbearably wonderful pressure. Jocelyn was methodical in this, as in everything, but not in the cool and emotionless manner of the barrister in the courtroom; Maggie could hear Jocelyn's own moans between the kisses that she layered greedily into Maggie's breasts and collarbone and hips. And Maggie, knowing that Jocelyn was being bolder than she had ever been in her life, shouted encouragement, her words following one another deliriously as she sank with a sob of anticipation into the ecstasy of Jocelyn's hunger.

Journalism had taught Maggie that one couldn't jump straight to conclusions; everything had to be built up, step by step, lead by lead, moment by moment. And so she focused intently on the shivers of pleasure that trembled insistently down her thighs from where Jocelyn's mouth was pressed between her legs, each wave of desire cresting a bit higher than the last, until her climax crept up and seized her suddenly, her thighs opening, her hips convulsing upwards against Jocelyn's eager lips. She fell back against the bed with a groan, her arms encircling Jocelyn as the barrister crawled back to lie beside her.

"God, I love you, Jocelyn," Maggie sighed. She could taste herself on Jocelyn's lips when Jocelyn kissed her and whispered, "I know you do." And that was all that Maggie wished and needed to hear, because if Jocelyn had finally accepted that Maggie wanted to be hers, then that meant that this wouldn't be the first and last night that they would have together; that after fifteen agonising years, they would finally be able to start down a new path, hand in hand, sure of their intentions and of the special place that they held in each other's lives.

Maggie listened to Jocelyn breathing evenly next to her as she drifted effortlessly off to sleep, snug between the barrister's sheets, her hand warm against Jocelyn's hip. And it occurred to Maggie that, notwithstanding all her previous partners and lovers, she too had never felt quite as certain about belonging as she did in this moment.


End file.
